COASTAL OBSERVER

Twenty-five years after a legal challenge derailed an effort to form a new town on the Waccamaw Neck, a group says it has spent more than a year studying the issue and is ready to move forward as a response to Georgetown County’s update of its future land use plan.

“This is the viable alternative to replace the unincorporated County government we live under today,” the Pawleys Litchfield Municipal Study Group announced in an email last week. 

It said the only way to block the adoption of a new land use element to the county’s comprehensive plan is to create a new town on what the group calls “Lower Waccamaw Neck.”

If it proceeds, it will be the fourth time in four decades area residents have tried to form a town. Pawleys Island succeeded in 1985. The Litchfield Beaches failed in a 1989 referendum and withdrew a proposal in 1997. Another civic group tried to create a town from North Litchfield to Hagley the following year, but the issue never came to a vote because the state incorporation statute was ruled unconstitutional.

All the efforts came in response to county land use decisions.

Andy Hallock, who is the chairman of the new group, declined to be interviewed about its work

“It’s a little early to talk with the press. When we have more answers of course we will look forward to talking with you,” he said in an email.

Hallock is one of the founders of Keep It Green, a citizens group created in 2019 to oppose residential development on the former Litchfield Racquet Club.  That group went on to challenge a series of land use decisions  though a spinoff: Keep It Green Advocacy.

Hallock, a River Club resident, is no longer a member of the Keep It Green board and the study group says it is “not affiliated with any other organization.”

The study group has not identified any of its other members.

In an email statement, it said its initial announcement generated questions from “hundreds of respondents” that it planned to answer through its “ongoing  communications campaign.”

A mass email from the group this week said many of the questions were about the name of the town. It provided a link to click to submit ideas.

State law, amended in 2005, sets out the steps required to form a town. It starts with an application to the S.C. Secretary of State’s office with a petition signed by 15 percent of the “qualified electors” in the proposed town. 

The applicants must document the minimum services that the town will provide and how they will pay for them. That includes “either directly or indirectly a substantially similar level of law enforcement services” to those in place now.

The study group says its town would include the area south of Brookgreen Gardens, stopping short of DeBordieu on the east side of Highway 17 and ending with Prince George on the west side.  It estimates the population at 16,400.

Sheriff Carter Weaver said he met with someone from the study group.

“The biggest question that any group trying to incorporate would have is: how would you address policing an incorporated area,” he said.

A town can contract with the county, as Pawleys did in its early years, or form its own police department, as Pawleys Island did eventually. Law enforcement accounts for a quarter of the town’s annual spending. It stopped providing 24-7 coverage two years ago, relying on the sheriff’s office to respond at off-peak times.

Weaver used a proposed development outside Georgetown known as Crown Pointe as the baseline for what the proposed town would need. It was planned for 7,700 homes and 1.75 million square feet of commercial space on 5,200 acres.

“The staffing need for that was 32,” Weaver said.

That included patrol deputies, supervisors, investigators, animal control and litter.

“I can tell you with certainty that it would not be less than that,”  he said.

Weaver was asked if law enforcement for the town could be done at the county’s current level of staffing. The county just raised the staffing in the sheriff’s office from 85 to 93 positions.

“The answer to that is no,” Weaver said. “It would be a whole lot more.”

Council Member Bob Anderson, who shares the study group’s concerns about growth, said they have kept him updated about their work.

“I told them you’re to have all the property taxes that you’re going to have from the county plus whatever millage you have to have to run your new municipality,” he said, adding that it was too much “just to have their own zoning ordinance.”

But he thinks the effort could send a message.

“I think County Council needs to realize these people don’t want anything to do with them anymore,” Anderson said.

A group called the Waccamaw Neck Civic Association started an effort in 1998 to incorporate much the same area, which then had a population of about 10,000. It was prompted by concerns that the county’s land use decisions could result in the area looking like Myrtle Beach.

They created a feasibility study and submitted a petition to the state. They estimated that the town would require 15 mills of tax about 6 percent more than what property owners already paid to the county. The money would fund police protection, a building department and road maintenance. That was expected to cover half of the $1.5 million annual budget. The rest would come from grants, fees and fines.

The association got an agreement from Georgetown County to provide other services, such as fire protection through Midway Fire and Rescue.

The Pawleys Island Civic Club opposed the incorporation, saying the extra taxes would impact minority property owners and senior citizens. At the time, federal law required that the U.S. Justice Department “pre-clear” the referendum under the Voting Rights Act.  (The U.S. Supreme Court struck down that provision in 2013.) Opponents sought to block the vote in federal court.

A judge found that the state’s incorporation statute was unconstitutional and the referendum planned for October 1999 was halted. By the time the state legislature amended the law in 2000, the Waccamaw Neck Civic Association decided it would focus on other issues.

“We do believe at some point in time the community will be ready to consider incorporation. We don’t think that time is now,” the association president said.